The Greedy Carp
The mastermind…?
The man’s height was ordinary, his frame a little on the thin side. His eyes were so narrowly slit that the pupils themselves nearly vanished from view. Thin lips twisted into something sly and mean whenever he smiled, and his voice sat a touch too high, carrying the oily quality of a scheming courtier.
In short, he was the very picture of the classic “narrow-eyed villain.”
Of everyone present, Dang Su-jeong possessed the richest experience of the jianghu. She stroked her chin, eyes sharpening to a knife’s edge.
“In my years on the road, anyone with a face like that is nine-point-nine-nine out of ten a scheming mastermind cooking up some shady plot! A villain!”
“….”
Why is it that Auntie looks so cool when she fights, yet sometimes turns into this slightly tragic person?
Hui-yeom cleared his throat like a man of common sense, stepped forward, and offered a cupped-fist salute.
“Allow me to apologize on behalf of my aunt for her rudeness. This humble one is Hui-yeom, young master of the Sichuan Dang Family. And you are…?”
“No, Hwi-yeom, I’m telling you he’s a villain! A face like that is nine times out of ten!”
“What kind of….”
The man stared at Dang Su-jeong with an expression of pure disbelief, then shook his head as if to cast off the absurdity, and returned Hui-yeom’s salute.
“A pleasure. I am Tan Li, chairman of the Suzhou Boatmen’s Association.”
“Greedy Carp, is it… Not your real name, I take it.”
“What use has a lowly man like me for a real name? I am a duckweed life—no birthplace, no family left.”
When the two of them began conversing as if she were not even there, Dang Su-jeong’s temper flared and she shouted,
“That man is hiding his martial arts! How could the chairman of a mere boatmen’s association possess internal power that strong? He’s definitely a black-path expert concealing his identity!”
“?”
Only then did a faint light of suspicion flicker across Hui-yeom’s eyes. Tan Li merely shrugged.
“It wasn’t as though I was deliberately trying to hide anything….”
“So you are an expert, then.”
“Is there a law that says an expert cannot become a boatman? Even if I insisted, you wouldn’t buy it. Still, to be called an expert by none other than the Poison Phoenix of the realm—what an honor.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Honor restored, Dang Su-jeong slipped a hand into her sleeve. Tension settled over the room like a drawn bowstring.
Tan Li, however, raised both hands above his head as if to show he had no desire to fight.
“I am merely a branch chief of ordinary Haomun.”
“Haomun?”
Having never heard the name, Hui-yeom immediately sent a sound transmission to Ye-eun.
I’ve never heard of this sect. Orthodox or unorthodox?
……?
Even so, how could anyone not know Haomun?
True, until now Hui-yeom had had little occasion to tangle with unorthodox sects beyond the Green Forest bandits and the Yangtze water bandits. Still…
…Well, when you’re busy running a business, these things can slip by.
Ye-eun gave a small nod and replied.
Haomun is unorthodox. Originally it was formed by people of lowly trades—pickpockets, thieves, courtesans, coachmen, shop hands, butchers—who banded together to protect one another.
Because it’s a sect of bottom-rung lives, their martial standards aren’t high. But they have vast numbers and countless eyes and ears, so their intelligence network is outstanding.
If the Beggars’ Sect is the eyes and ears of the orthodox path, Haomun is that of the unorthodox. In many ways they resemble our own Minjeongwon.
I see.
Situation grasped, Hui-yeom spoke aloud.
“As a branch chief you would possess a certain degree of authority—suitable enough for negotiations.”
“Negotiations? These days, is dragging warriors in, barging through the door, and branding someone the mastermind called ‘negotiation’ instead of ‘intimidation’?”
“There seems to have been a small, unwanted misunderstanding on that point. If we had truly come to ‘intimidate’ Haomun, would we have needed such a cumbersome, attention-grabbing method?”
The remark forced Tan Li to confront the disparity in power; his eyebrows twitched. In that same instant Hui-yeom smiled lightly, easing the tension.
“I’ll be frank. Until we arrived in Suzhou we had no idea this Boatmen’s Association even existed. We came purely for sightseeing.”
“Granted. Then why, after learning of the Association, did you deliberately seek us out? If the Sichuan Dang Family intends to install a new chairman of its own, I can’t say I’d be particularly pleased.”
“Nothing of the sort. I’ve come to propose a business partnership.”
“A business partnership?”
“That said… how long are we going to stand here talking?”
At Hui-yeom’s words Tan Li finally nodded.
“If your side hadn’t looked ready to attack me as the mastermind, I would have invited you inside already.
Please, come in. I’ve recently managed to secure some Caffa.”
Tan Li led Hui-yeom’s party into an office built into the rear of the warehouse. Compared with Hui-yeom’s own study it was modest, yet a considerable stack of documents still rose on the desk.
“You seem to have quite the workload.”
“It’s nothing much. Mediating quarrels among the boatmen, looking after weddings and funerals, collecting association dues and spending them… that sort of thing.”
As if.
But Hui-yeom had no desire to play detective and drag out matters the other man preferred to keep hidden, thereby raising unnecessary walls. He let it pass.
Steaming Caffa was served. After a few rounds of the cups, Tan Li remarked in a joking tone,
“You Dang Family folk have it good. Wherever you go, you never have to worry about being poisoned.”
“Well, that’s true enough. The Caffa is excellent. Your brewing skill is impressive.”
“I merely poured water over powder that was already roasted and ground. More importantly, you said you brought a business proposal. May we hear the main point now?”
“Of course. In truth, our Dang Family is currently carrying out a national project under His Majesty’s command—to revitalize water transport along the entire Yangtze and all related enterprises.
As part of that effort we launched something called the Personal Boat business.”
“Personal Boats?”
After hearing the outline of Angang’s Personal Boat service, Tan Li nodded with genuine interest.
“Impressive. If you can employ the water bandits of the Yangtze’s Eighteen Forts as boatmen, safety would be guaranteed, and demand for both tourism and ordinary transport would be more than sufficient. A fine concept.”
“Ah, you’ve misunderstood. Every employee of our Angang is a fine, upstanding citizen. Please refrain from baseless claims linking us to any bandit group.”
“My apologies. It’s just that the water bandits of the Yangtze vanished overnight and this organization appeared in their place, so all manner of rumors are flying….”
“Rumors are rumors precisely because they are rumors. Surely you aren’t suggesting that His Majesty is knowingly employing water bandits? If such talk reaches Beijing, very unpleasant things will follow.”
“Hahaha, nothing of the sort. This fellow was just spouting nonsense. Kindly forget I spoke.”
In that short exchange countless probes and counters flashed back and forth, yet in the end Tan Li effectively surrendered. An intelligence organization of Haomun’s caliber could not possibly be ignorant of Angang’s true nature. But to voice that knowledge officially was a perilously dangerous act that risked the wrath of the Sichuan Dang Family—and, by extension, the Emperor himself. Therefore it could never serve as blackmail material. Tan Li had recognized that fact quickly.
At the same time, he had made certain Hui-yeom understood that Haomun’s information network was not to be taken lightly.
Hui-yeom continued.
“In any case, we reached the conclusion that forcing Angang’s Personal Boats into Suzhou would only create conflict and would be thoroughly inefficient.”
“Inefficient… yes.”
Tan Li nodded in agreement.
“The waterways of Suzhou are as intricate as the veins of a human body. An outsider would need a very long time to adapt to them.
Moreover the local boatmen would see their livelihoods threatened; they would either rush to the yamen to plead or start open clashes. That would sour public opinion—hardly welcome from the Dang Family’s perspective either.
Of course, if the Dang Family intended to seize Suzhou outright, the conversation would be different….”
“Seize Suzhou… Hearing you say that, I find myself curious. Does Haomun wish to claim that it already holds Suzhou?”
“Hardly. Haomun is an assembly of bottom-rung lives; the business of ‘occupying’ or ‘seizing’ places has never suited us.
Yet… yes.”
Tan Li grinned.
“We can be the maggot inside the apple, the ant inside the fig.”
Bottom-rung lives can never be eradicated. To eradicate them would be synonymous with eradicating poverty itself from the world. Of course, exceptional cases like Sichuan might exist… yet even Hui-yeom knew that expanding the Sichuan model across the entire Central Plains was nothing more than a fantasy.
Hui-yeom smiled.
“Isn’t that simply how the world works? If you fear the ant, don’t eat the fig that fell to the ground; if you fear the maggot inside the fruit, don’t eat fruit with holes.”
“Ho. Meaning you are open to coexisting with our Haomun?”
“Exactly.”
“The great and orthodox Sichuan Dang Family?”
“Weren’t you the one talking about Angang just moments ago?”
“True enough. Any other house I would have dismissed with ‘stop talking rubbish,’ but when it’s the Dang Family that already holds Green Mountain and Angang… it carries weight.”
Tan Li gave a sly little laugh.
“I break out in hives around famous orthodox houses, but I suppose the Dang Family can be the exception. After all, you are the house of the hero who saved the Central Plains.”
“We’ve wandered far enough. Shall we move on to the concrete terms of cooperation and partnership…?”
“Ah—my repeated apologies, but there is one last matter I must raise first.”
“What is it?”
“Haomun’s internal position needs a little… arranging. In short….”
Tan Li’s smile turned sticky.
“The entire Suzhou branch of Haomun will not necessarily agree to Young Master Dang’s business proposal.”
“Isn’t that a problem for you to handle? You are the branch chief, after all.”
“It is true that I am a branch chief. And in Suzhou there happen to be five people who all call themselves the Suzhou branch chief of Haomun.”
“Excuse me?”
Hui-yeom’s face asked what kind of scam-coin-as-reserve-currency nonsense this was. Tan Li explained.
“Haomun is a every-man-for-himself sort of sect, so these things happen. More precisely, five factions are currently fighting over the title of branch chief. I am the one who represents the boatmen and the coach stations among them.
I created the Suzhou Boatmen’s Association for that very reason—to gather and solidify the forces under me for the power struggle.”
“Hmm.”
In plain terms, the title of Suzhou branch chief was self-proclaimed. Five officers were locked in a clandestine war for the seat. And the reason he was telling Hui-yeom this? Obvious.
“You want us to help you eliminate the other four branch chiefs.”
“Well, rather than cooperating while I hold only the Boatmen’s Association, wouldn’t it benefit the Dang Family’s enterprises far more if I held all of Suzhou?”
“I won’t deny that point.”
Helping him seize the Suzhou branch-chief seat would naturally strengthen the Dang Family’s influence over the city. Of course, Hui-yeom was not naïve enough to take Tan Li’s proposal at face value.
Every country that invites foreign power does so not to hand over the nation, but to snatch the fisherman’s profit and then drive the foreigners out again. Once this man used the Dang Family’s strength to become branch chief of Suzhou, how would he then try to shut the Dang Family out so he would not be swallowed?
So obvious it’s almost boring. Well then—shall we see who swallows whom?
Hui-yeom gave a short, dry laugh.
“Let’s hear the concrete details, shall we?”
There is a saying about fleeing a fox only to invite a tiger. The greedy carp believed he had summoned a water snake to help him seize the pond. Soon enough he would learn the truth.
What he had invited was no water snake—but a poison dragon.